Back To You
by websurffer
Summary: Rose falls into the Void. This is her life after death with an alternate Doctor. Part 1 of As the Wolf Howls. Now Complete.
1. Chapter 1

The howling Void wind swept across her delicate mental fibers like sandpaper against raw wounds. Once she has been more. Skin and bone and teeth and hair. Limbs and a body. It was all she could do to keep these last tiny pieces of herself together.

She was the Bad Wolf.

She loved a man who was not a man named and not named the Doctor.

And she would get back to him.

*********

Many of you would protest. Rose Tyler, companion of the Doctor, did not fall into the Void. She was in fact saved at the last possible second by an alternate version of her father and ripped away from her Doctor. He burnt up a sun to say goodbye.

But fate is not always so kind, and with just a slight delay everything can change. Peter Tyler with the alternate version of his Cyberized wife Jackie, argues that Rose made her choice and will be happy with the Doctor. Jackie takes just a second longer to convince him and the gate way between worlds slams shut, with them never knowing the fate of Rose Tyler.

Without Pete to stop her fall, Rose Tyler enters the Void. The screams of her Doctor echo in her ears as the last sound and his horrified face burns across her retinas as the last sight. The Void closes.

The Doctor, shocked, will let go of his Anti-Gravity Clamp and stare blankly at the wall. After a time he will walk towards the expanse of white and lay a trembling hand on it before breaking into tears. When he leaves, fires rage and people scream but he is deaf to it all until a bride in white appears on his ship. She tells him to stop and he forces himself to start living and caring again.

He will never forget Rose Tyler. But he recovers and travels onwards, ever onwards, if a bit sadder than before.

Rose Tyler, on the other hand, does not have such an easy time of it.

When the Doctor described the Void as a vast nothingness, as the thing that inspired human authors to write of hell and torment, Rose had thought she had understood.

She had no idea.

The howling winds that somehow not only whipped across her but cut through her, the unending blackness of screaming night. Darkness so complete that Rose forgot what light was, that she had ever known light. And it was in this darkness, as she forgot more and more of herself that Rose became the Wolf once again to survive. And it was in this darkness that Rose Tyler made the Three Truths which allowed her to survive where no being had before.

She was the Bad Wolf.

She loved the Doctor.

And she would get back to him.

*******

The TARDIS landed with a somewhat less than elegant thud and immediately chucked the Doctor out.

As he lay flat on his back in the fresh green grass of what appeared to be somewhere in England of 21st century Earth, he pondered the psychology of time machines, his in particular. If he was a less logical man and more prone to generalizing he might say that the reason his TARDIS was so temperamental was the Time War. But she had been that way for centuries now and blaming recent trauma just wasn't good enough.

Sighing, he reached up and ran his hand roughly over his closely shorn hair. His mind was raw with the loss of his people, and he felt like this body was giving out already. The radiation from the final weapon had nearly caused him to regenerate immediately after he'd come out of his 8th one. He'd managed to drag himself to the Zero Room though, but knew that this body would never feel well, would always ache.

Without warning a black-purple tear ripped through the sky. The Doctor bolted upright and staggered back a few steps to lean against the TARDIS. The tear wasn't large, not even the span of the Doctor's arms, but the ice cold wind the poured through it spelled nothing good. When the blackness began to shift and slid out, oozing like blood from a wound, the Doctor's hand went immediately for the Sonic Screwdriver. The blob of darkness pooled below the tear before separating from it with a slight ripple. The tear sealed itself as suddenly as it had formed, leaving the blob behind.

The Doctor watched the blob warily. While he wasn't one to judge by appearances, anything from such a dark place put him on edge. Slowly, when it appeared that the blob wasn't going to move in any way, the Doctor moved away from the shelter of the TARDIS and closer to it. Clicking on the sonic, he moved to scan it only to be surprised when the faint blue light caused the creature to shudder and shift away. Swiftly he clicked it off again and the blob settled back to its previous position.

Now the Doctor was really curious. Very, very slowly he reached out and touched the very surface of the blob. He froze as tiny tendrils formed and swept lightly over his hand, lighter than the touch of a feather. The blob shivered a bit and pulsed and suddenly his mind was over whelmed with three thoughts, repeating endlessly.

**I AM THE BAD WOLF.**

**I LOVE THE DOCTOR.**

**I WILL RETURN TO HIM.**

The pressure of the psychic contact against his already battered mind sent the Doctor flying into unconsciousness.

*****

Something was different.

**.iwillreturntohim.**

The wind had stopped….and the darkness, where had the darkness gone?

**.iwillreturntohim.**

Something else was there….but it wasn't a reaperbeast… **THEDOCTOR THEDOCTOR THEDOCTOR THEDOCTOR THEDOCTOR!**

**I AM THE BAD WOLF.I LOVE THE DOCTOR.I WILL RETURN TO HIM.**

*******

When the Doctor woke, the first thing he noticed was the naked girl sprawled across his chest. She appeared to be mostly human in form but as he looked more closely he saw that many details were wrong. It was as if someone had learned a great deal about humans from books and then tried to make one. Her hands ended in nails that were more like talons or claws, and appeared dipped in gold. Her hair was long and bleached white but her skin held a healthy tan. Her eyes looked rimmed with black, but the Doctor wasn't sure if it was natural or not. Trails of gold flowed across her skin, spiraling softly inwards to the center of her chest. She was breathing, this strange golden girl, and obviously alive, but no heart beat within her body as far as the Doctor could tell.

As curious as he was about this new creature, he shifted out from under her and looked around for the strange black blob that had come form the tear in the sky. No evidence remained that such a creature had ever been.

As he looked around in mild consternation, the girl behind him stirred. When she sat up and immediately tipped over to the other side, the Doctor barely managed to keep her form falling.

"Easy now, not sure where you're from but you don't seem quite steady yet."

Deep brown eyes blinked up at him with out any comprehension shining in their depths.

"I'm the Doctor…"

At this the girl's eyes lit up with a golden light and her hands leapt to his temples.

**DOCTOR DOCTOR DOCTOR DOCTOR DOCTOR DOCTOR DOCTOR DOCTOR DOCTOR!**

"Yes! I'm the Doctor! Please, stop shouting at me."

The girl seemed to focus on his face for a moment. His intense blue eyes watered with pain as her thoughts continued to burn across his mind, still raw and bleeding with wounds from the War. Suddenly the thoughts cooled to a soothing balm, as if she had sensed the damage within him. Who was he kidding, there was no way she could have missed it, she was probably disgusted….

Never. Nonononono…love the Doctor. Just the Doctor. Not my Doctor but a Doctor. Still the only one left but all blue this time. Not brown, not yet. Blue will last longer this time.

Warmth and affection suffused him until the Doctor finally had to pull away from the mental contact. Rather than becoming upset, the strange girl curled into his chest and, to his surprise, went right to sleep. Seeing no other option, he lifted her up and carried her into the TARDIS, which closed the door behind him and took herself into the Vortex, knowing that their business here was done.


	2. Chapter 2

Bad Wolf awoke calmly. The Time winds were whirling outside the living machine but she felt at home and safe. This was where the Doctor was and therefore this was home. Sitting up, cautiously this time, remembering the near tumble of before and stretching new limbs, Bad Wolf scented the air and huffed lightly. Many scents, most old, some new. All of the latest were of her Doctor, but that didn't matter. She would always be able to find him.

He was one of the Truths.

Sliding from the bed where she had awoken, Bad Wolf sat momentarily on the floor. Her information from this point was shaky. Did she move forward on four legs or two? The part saying two admitted that four came before two and thus the decision was made. Awkwardly coordinating her movements in a feral rolling crouch, Bad Wolf decided that it was good enough and set out into the hallway in search of her Doctor. Quite soon she could hear faint swearing echoing up from elsewhere in the machine. Following the sounds, Bad Wolf sat back a bit onto her haunches and looked around.

This was the room where her Doctor was…but where was he?

When his head popped up from below the grating with a manic grin, Bad Wolf fell over in surprise. As the Doctor chuckled, she carefully rearranged her limbs until she was sitting up once again and huffed an annoyed breath at him. His smile dimmed a touch.

"We really are going to have to teach you to speak. I'm not up for prolonged mental contact and you need to be able to communicate with the rest of the universe. I think you used to know how, your thoughts have words after all, not just pictures and emotions, but somehow you've forgotten."

At the word 'forgotten' her eyes went distant and dim for a long moment before she looked up at him mournfully.

"Ah…so that's it then. You did know, didn't you?"

The Doctor carefully reached out and made contact with her temples.

"What is it that made you forget?"

Instantly the howling blackness swept across his mind, worse than all the deaths of the Time War wrapped into a single moment and forced into his head. When the connection snapped the Doctor blinked his eyes several times to find himself on the floor. The girl was folded up around herself beside him on the grating, rocking herself with her arms locked around her knees.

"You were…." He coughed dryly, not having enough moisture left in his mouth to form words for a moment, "You were in the Void. But….no one could survive that…how…?"

Her eyes locked with his and even though they weren't connected by touch he could hear her mindvoice echoing across his.

**I am the Bad Wolf. I love the Doctor. I will return to him.**

***********

Just because the doctor had a bit of a mystery on his hands, didn't mean that the rest of the universe stopped. In fact, there seemed to be a problem in the year 2005 in central London. Setting a course, the Doctor glanced over to where the girl was sitting.

Well, not just the girl anymore. He supposed she was the Bad Wolf, whatever that meant or didn't mean.

She was curled in the jump seat, staring at the central column as it pulsed with the movement and life of the TARDIS. She didn't seemed at all phased by the jerky motion of the rest of the ship, and didn't even seem to need to reach out and balance herself. It was almost as if she was more in tune with the TARDIS than any other companion had ever been.

They landed with a shudder and it was only then that the Doctor realized that, in this particular time and place, her appearance and the way she acted almost like an animal would definitely draw more attention than was necessarily good. Quickly he reached under the console and snagged a spare TARDIS key and some wire. Striding over towards a small storage compartment in the wall, he grabbed a few spare circuits and strung it all together into a quick, but effective, perception filter. With the TARDIS key as a component, he'd be able to see through the perception field, but it should keep most others from detecting her.

Looping it over her head, he explained, "London, 2005 isn't ready for you I don't think. Maybe if you could talk, but right now it's easier and safer to just block them out with this. If you run into people, they'll notice you but other wise their minds will just not register you. I can still see you obviously, vastly superior mental capacity and all that."

She blinked placidly up at him and, sighing, he decided that would have to do. Slipping into his leather jacket, he led the way out the doors and locked the TARDIS behind the two of them. Now, to see what exactly the trouble was.

*****

This was all very familiar to her. A tiny fragment had begun to emerge from the blackness that still swamped her mind. Her sleeping memories were stirring.

London…London…London…oh if she could just remember. She knew that there was something here that meant something, and if she could just get the pieces to fall together maybe she'd remember more. Things she needed to know.

As she loped along after the Doctor she decided that she really needed to master the whole walking on two legs business. It was difficult for her to keep up, even when he kept getting distracted by shiny gadgets and displays in shop windows. When he finally went into a store (Henrik's, which also seemed extremely familiar….) it was a relief for her to be able to sit for a moment. He wandered about, and though she kept an eye on him, she went over to a wall and hauled herself up.

She was more familiar with this body now than she had been, and managed to stay standing upright with little fuss. Leaning on the wall, she then staggered a few steps forward and had to rock back a bit heavily into a half crouch when she lost her balance. Perhaps a bit less of the rocking motion she used to walk on four legs?

She studied the humans who were wandering the store intently. They all seemed to walk with such ease, surely it wasn't as hard as it seemed to her right now. Determined once again, she took several steps forward. When her balance remained completely intact, she felt a rush of triumph, and took her hand away from the wall. Taking a few more cautious steps, she felt her confidence grow and soon padded over to follow the Doctor around the store.

This was much more efficient that the rolling crouch she had used before.

When she appeared behind him, the Doctor had been surprised and issued more of the sounds he used so much. She knew that they were words and that, at one time she had known them too. She could almost catch what he meant at times, but then the blackness that still covered most of her mind would shift and obscure the meanings once again. This time though, she knew that he was impressed with her, and she smiled back at him.

Some how this caused him to launch into an extended speech, waving his lighted stick around a bit in enthusiasm. She supposed he had figured out something about why they had landed here, or had found something that really interested him. When he grabbed her hand and led her out of the store and back to the TARDIS, she assumed that they were done here and would now move on.

After several hours of watching him gather packs of something with string sticking out of the top and little watches strapped to the front, Bad Wolf was quite bored. This didn't fit her mental reference of the Doctor at all, there wasn't any running for a start. Oh if she could only remember more things, she could ask what he was doing and why they were just sitting here doing nothing.

Finally he seemed satisfied and put all the blocks with string and watches into a small black bag. Bad Wolf perked up, thinking that maybe this meant that they were finally going to go do something, but deflated slightly when he merely headed for the doors. Back into London then. Well, it was still better than just sitting around in here, where nothing happened and there was no running.

When they stepped outside, Bad Wolf blinked in surprise. It was dark, not the blackness of the Void place, she shuddered, but a lighter darkness pierced with stars and moonlight. How strange….

The Doctor hadn't seemed to notice that he was leaving her behind as he strode along towards the area that they had been to earlier in the day. She quickly followed after him, huffing a harsh breath of aggravation. What _was_ he doing?

When they reached the store where they had been before, he walked around the building, putting a pack against the wall every so often. After they'd circled the entire place, he used his light stick to open the door and head inside. Bad Wolf followed, only vaguely interested in what he was doing. There were strange smells here, which hadn't been here earlier, smells of toxins and the strange not people that were placed all around the store.

Her hackles rose.

The Doctor was heading down stairs now, and she followed somewhat reluctantly. The smells here were stronger than those above were. When she caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye, she whirled with a snarl at the ready.

Nothing was there.

Tense now, and moving closer behind the Doctor, she watched the shadow warily. She hoped that he would be done with whatever he needed soon. This place was reminding her strongly of something, but what she still couldn't think of.

When the attack came, it was a surprise. A hand clamped onto her shoulder from behind and spun her around. On of the not people stood there, it's expressionless features some how conveying malice. The Doctor shone his light stick over her shoulder, which seemed to freeze it in place. He then walked quickly around her and wrenched off its head.

He looked back at her and grabbed her hand. Familiarity echoed golden through her mind and as he opened his grinning mouth to speak she heard the echo of him in her memories.

"Run!"

Staggering after him, she tried to contain the reeling in her mind that had been sparked by that one word. Run….he had said that before in a place that was and was not this place. When he had been another Doctor, her original Doctor. And they had run from these same things…but it had been different then as well. She hadn't known her Doctor then….this was when they met! That was what he had said!

In the surprise of remembering, she barely noticed the TARDIS moving as the Doctor followed the signal that animated the plastic. When they landed and she followed him out, she was surprised once again when she found that the blackness hadn't erased her understanding of words once again, but that she could understand what he was saying.

"I lost the signal. I got so close! How can you hide something that big in a city this small?" He turned towards her, explaining but obviously not expecting any help from her quarter, "The Transmitter, y'see. The Nestene Consciousness is controlling every bit of plastic but it needs a transmitter to boost the signal. It'd be round and massive, somewhere slap bang in the middle of London. A huge metal circular structure, like a dish, like a wheel. Radial. Close to where we're standing, must be completely invisible."

She mutely pointed behind him. He spun around and scanned the area. Seeing nothing he looked back at her.

"What?"

She pointed more insistently. He turned around again, starting to feel a bit annoyed, and spotted the London Eye. Big, round, metal and dish shaped. He couldn't see it for looking.

"Fantastic!"

With a grin he turned and grabbed her hand before running back into the TARDIS and dematerializing.

She was trying to sort it all out. Suddenly all these sounds were making much more sense, but she was having a bit of trouble adjusting. One second she had been unable to connect and then within the space of a second her entire understanding had shifted. The gold light running through her mind was burning away bits of the blackness and revealing tiny bits at a time, more and more of her memories and self coming awake.

They landed with a shudder and the Doctor bounded out the doors. She scampered to keep up with him as he ran down some steps and opened a round hole set into the ground. Climbing down a ladder and some stairs, they soon came face to face with a vat of plastic that was moving on it's own. She crouched down, the familiarity overwhelming her.

"I seek audience with the Nestene Consciousness under peaceful contract, according to convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation."

Again, his words set off ripples of gold through her mind. She had done this all before, she knew, but couldn't remember the out come. The creature in the vat writhed and roared an answer that apparently the Doctor understood. She felt that she should some how be able to understand as well, but she didn't.

"Thank you, if I might have permission to approach?"

Bad Wolf felt that the Doctor shouldn't have to ask. This, Consciousness, should fell privileged to be in his presence. He was trying to save it, she knew some how, and it was expecting him to respect it? He walked closer to the vat, while she remained crouched on the platform above.

"Am I addressing the Consciousness? Thank you. If I might observe, you infiltrated this civilization by means of warp shunt technology, so may I suggest, with the greatest respect, that you…shunt off?"

The vat boiled and screamed with what she assumed was rage and offence. The Doctor didn't seem at all perturbed by this, however, and so she remained where she was.

"Oh don't give me that! It's an invasion, plain and simple. Don't talk about Constitutional rights!"

Again the plastic creature in the vat responded angrily.

"I AM TALKING!" After a moment of silence, the Doctor continued, "This planet is just starting. These stupid little people have only just learnt to walk, but they're capable of so much more. I'm asking you on their behalf, please just go."

Two of the not people, manikins she now remembered, stalked up from the shadows behind the Doctor and grabbed him. She growled low in her throat and prepared to spring at them. One of them pulled a vial of some sort from within the Doctor's jacket.

"That was just insurance! I wasn't gonna use it!" The vat writhed. "I was not attacking you, I'm here to help. I'm not your enemy, I swear, I'm not!"

The vat screamed and a door above shuddered open. The TARDIS was revealed and the vat went wild.

"What?…oh no NO! Honestly no! Well, yes that's my ship, but that's not true! I should know I was there, I fought in the war, it wasn't my fault! I couldn't save your world, I couldn't save any of them! Please, just leave this world alone!"

Bad Wolf sensed a pulse emanating from the creature in the vat. She saw that the Doctor was becoming more and more distressed, and growled again. Suddenly a blue lightning shot out from the vat and connected to the Eye above them.

"It's transmitting!"

There was such defeat in the Doctor's voice that it momentarily distracted her from her plan of attack. He sounded as though he was now expecting not only to die himself, but to have failed the world above as well. She would not let that happen.

Looking around, she located a chain that extended down from the ceiling. Quickly detaching it from the wall, she had another golden moment of knowledge that this was how it was meant to be. That she had done this before. She took a breath, firmed her grip, and swung.

* * *

A/N: Okay, so now this is caught up with Whofic and will therefore be posted on the same schedule of once a week (two this week) on either wednesdays or thursdays. :)


	3. Chapter 3

As she sailed out over empty air, Bad Wolf had a moment of joy through her anger at the Doctor being attacked. This was how it was supposed to be, dangerous and fun.

Her feet connected solidly with the body of the manikin holding the vial taken from the Doctor's jacket. Both the manikin and the vial fell into the vat and the Doctor managed to free himself from the one holding his arms. As she swung back he caught her against him, and gave her a large grin before they ran up the stairs to the TARDIS. The signal gave out and explosions rocked the area. She knew that confusion was probably rampant in the streets above, but was mainly concerned with getting both herself and the Doctor safely out of here.

As the Consciousness died, the TARDIS faded away.

* * * *

The Doctor grinned hugely and looked over at his companion. She seemed to be concentrating intensely on some inner thoughts, and so he moved to go work some more on the TARDIS before they left the Vortex for a new location.

"Dok….tah….."

Whirling in shock he locked eyes with a very triumphant looking Bad Wolf.

"You talked! Well, made sounds but I understood and that's what matters, eh?! Fantastic, that's what that is!"

"Mmmm…ai….My….Doctor."

He froze for a moment. "Your Doctor? No, I think that I'm my Doctor, me myself and I and all that…"

She glared playfully at him. "My Doctor. Your Wolf."

"Ah…well, we don't actually belong to each other like that. I mean yes we travel together and all…and that's not to say that you aren't lovely for a...what ever you are but, I'm still me and you're you and we don't own anyone else."

A small crease formed between her eyebrows as she pouted at him. Standing she walked carefully over and put a hand directly over her left heart.

"My heart."

"Ah…no, that's one of mine…" She could see that he didn't understand.

She lifted one of his hands to rest lightly against her chest where her heart should have been.

"Lost. In Darkness." She tapped his chest again. "Use yours."

"So…wait, you've somehow linked yourself to my life? And now my left heart is sort of beating in place of yours? What happens to you when I die then?" Ah, the Doctor, ever so concerned for the life of others, she smiled gently.

"You die, I die. You come back, I come back. You change. I same."

"Oh, so when I regenerate you come back to life as well, but the same as you are now." She nodded happily. "Well that's….different."

The words "good different or bad different" echoed in her mind, but it was not time yet for those words and so she shook them off.

"Rose."

He looked at her in confusion once again. "What was that?"

She tapped her chest. "Bad Wolf." She tapped again, "Rose."

"So you're both the Bad Wolf and Rose?"

She nodded and then, frustrated with trying to explain things to him lifted his hands to her temples and gently connected to him.

* * * * * *

The instant that she had grabbed his hands, the Doctor had been forced to fight the urge to rip himself away from her and run for the depths of his ship. Some how he managed to make himself stay still.

This time her mind didn't burn into his. A calm golden light lit up pools of blackness that he immediately connected to the black blob that had fallen from the rip in the sky.

That was you?

The affirmative rippled through her mind and she showed him that the gold light was her memories waking up slowly, and that she could only use a bit of them. The blackness, he came to understand, was where the Void had burned her mind with cold and that was what he had felt before when they connected. She hadn't been able to shield him from it before the gold came, and was sorry for that.

He saw the memory of the first time she had faced the Nestene Consciousness with him and understood from that, she was from an alternate universe. He, as well as she, didn't know what had led her to become trapped in the Void. All she could remember of that time line was her very first meeting with the Doctor of that reality and the face off with the Consciousness. It was as if there was something blocking her from knowing what was coming.

As he looked closer into the blockage, not necessarily to remove it but to understand it better, the golden light the suffused her mind formed a wolf before him. Swirling in the eyes of the wolf, was the Time Vortex itself. Gasping, the Doctor fell out of her mind and his body hit the grating of the TARDIS floor.

He stared up at this young girl, who not only had survived the Void, but apparently had also become one with the Vortex of her home world, and was now an embodiment of Time. No wonder she had trouble with her human memories, no human brain could handle the power she now had, and so the power had changed her. She now only looked human because it was the form her mind was most familiar with. If she ever truly remembered her life before, remembered and understood what it was to be human, the power would rip her apart.

As he came to this realization, a ripple of gold swept by him and hit a still raw and bleeding part of his mind and he was launched, screaming, into the memories of the Time War.

* * * * *

When the Doctor's mind had been sucked into the memories of the Time War, Rose had been thrown from him to the floor. When she recovered herself enough to sit up, he was curled in a fetal position and racked with shivers of remembered fear and pain.

Uncertainly, she crawled over to him and smoothed a hand over his shorn hair, tracing gentle fingers over his face. He leant into the touch and sighed slightly, but his shaking did not abate. Thinking quickly, Rose clambered over him rather inelegantly and spooned behind him, holding him to her with all her strength. The shivers quickly died down but it was some time before he spoke.

"Quite a pair we make, eh? I can't bear to have my mind touched even though mine was a telepathic race in constant contact with each other and the silence hurts me nearly as much. You remember less than half your life. And the both of us are completely out of Time." His breathing hitched and, before he quite knew what was happening, he began to sob.

Saying nothing, Rose simply pulled him closer to her and let him keen. After what felt like hours but was more likely just a few minutes, the Doctor, already stressed by the flashback and now this great emotional release, quieted and fell into a light sleep. Rose cradled him in her arms until he woke up, several hours later.

* * * *

When the Doctor had recovered fully from the emotional day before, he decided that he really needed to go to a place where he could get a proper medical scanner and look Rose over. She seemed to be in perfect health, and if she were to be believed, would live exactly as long as he would, but he'd feel better if he was surer.

Setting a course he was just about to launch the TARDIS out of the Vortex when a long range scanner picked up a distress signal coming from Utah, USA in the year 2012. Strange that, not much in Utah to begin with, though it was a nice enough place he supposed, and even fewer things that could send a message strong enough to attract the attention of one of his scanners.

Locking onto the signal, he sent his fantastic ship spinning through time and managed to land with only a minor shudder. Rose bounded into the console room from somewhere deeper in the TARDIS, the wardrobe room judging on what she was wearing.

"Ah, Rose, I'm not sure that 2012 Utah is ready for that…"

She was wearing a pair of traditional Native American buckskin pants that looked nearly painted on to her and a tight black top. She had found two turquoise and bronze armbands and had them securely in place on her upper arm. Her hair was loose and a bit wavy, framing her round face attractively. As was usual with her she went barefoot. All in all she looked stunning.

She tilted her head at him and smiled, the tip of her tongue resting playfully between her teeth, before sauntering past him and through the TARDIS doors, a bit more sway in her hips than he was sure was necessary.

Realizing that thinking about the sway of her hips was distracting him from this new adventure, and finding whatever creature it was that had sent the distress signal, the Doctor shook himself and chased after his companion.

As he stepped out of the TARDIS, he entered what appeared to be a museum of sorts. Seeing Rose looking intently into a display case he hurried over to her and looked in as well. The blank, dead eyes of a Cyberman stared back at him through the thick glass.

Both of the Doctor's hearts sank into his stomach. This was an alien museum, of sorts, and he and Rose were a perfect exhibit A and B. And he was sure, now, that whatever creature needed his help, was another unwilling piece of this strange collection.


	4. Chapter 4

As the doctor leaned closer for a better look at the remains of one of his long time enemies, he seemed to set off an alarm of some sort. He quickly stepped back from the case and took Rose's hand in his, distracted from the situation momentarily by how well their hands fit together. With astonishing speed they were completely surrounded by soldiers, all equipped with rather large black guns.

Raising his arms above his head, one hand still clasped with Rose's, the Doctor gave a wide grin.

"Take me to your leader. I've always wanted to say that, take me to your leader. Never thought I'd get the chance."

One of the soldiers gestured shortly with a gun and then turned and led the way deeper into the building.

* * * * *

Henry Van Statten was intrigued. Not only had the two intruders broken in to a secure facility well below ground, but they had managed it without setting off any of his many alarms until one of them happened to get a touch too close to a display case. Added to all these already interesting tid-bits, the girl was most definitely not human and that cast doubt onto her male companion.

As he watched them via the security camera footage that was being streamed into his office, he couldn't help but notice that the two hardly seemed perturbed by their current situation. In fact, the man seemed to be having quite a bit of fun.

How unusual.

Returning his attention to the intern who had bought several new items for the collection (Aaron? Adam? Alan? Something beginning with an A) Van Statten prepared himself to act completely nonchalant in the face of what could become his two prize exhibits. Live specimens were something that he had been hoping for since he conceived the idea of his museum.

After a sharp rap on the door, Van Statten waved for one of his aids to open it, while pretending to focus intently on what (Adam…that was it, he was sure of it) Adam was saying.

"Now this piece cost quite a bit and we think it's some sort of weapon."

"I see…" Henry took hold of the vaguely triangular object at the apex, with the longest side on top. He supposed that it did somewhat resemble a gun when held like this.

His guests snorted.

"Don't hold it like that." Oh, that was strange. The man sounded like he was from northern England.

"Why not? Is it dangerous?"

In a disturbing stereo the two answered, "No, it just looks daft." And turning, grinned widely at each other.

Thought they were clever did they, well then, "Fine, you show me."

The man reached out and delicately cradled the item in his large, rough hands. He held it flat, rather than up on one edge. Ever so lightly, he stroked his fingers across the various ridges, producing an ethereal music. After a moment, his companion reached for it and he let her take it without complaint. When she stroked it, even lighter than he had, the music was stranger, more alien, and Van Statten felt every hair on the back of his neck stand up. This music was threatening, like a wolf's howl.

"So it's an instrument then?" His voice was harsh after the music, and more abrasive than he had meant after the strange fear induced by the woman's playing. He reached out and snatched it from her, ignoreing her pout and the man's harsh glare.

"It's very sensitive," Van Statten ran his fingers over it and produced a harsh discordant sound, "It takes an extremely delicate touch. It can read the pressure just from your finger prints…" This time the same ethereal music as when the man had played sounded clearly through the room. The man grinned at him. "Looks like you're a natural."

No longer interested, Van Statten threw the instrument over his shoulder, momentarily amused as Adam fumbled for it. Ignoring the man's disapproving look, he walked towards the doors gesturing for everyone to follow him.

"Well, since you're so knowledgeable apparently, you can come see my prize piece. I call it the Metaltron, since it won't tell me it's name. As far as we can tell, it's the last of it's kind. It was found in a crater where it burned for three days, must have gone completely insane."

"How do you know it can even talk?"

Looking over his shoulder as he pushed open the doors to the Cage Room Van Statten answered, "Because it can scream."

* * * * * *

The Doctor had felt immediate nausea at Van Statten's words. This was most likely the creature that had called to him for help. This man was torturing it here in this vault and the Doctor had picked up its distress.

Van Statten continued. "If you can get it to talk, just to tell me its name, then I could negotiate with it, make a deal."

The Doctor wanted to physically recoil from the greasy smile that Van Statten gave. Forcing himself to nod and move towards the Cage door, the Doctor tried to think of a plan to get not only himself and Rose out of here without becoming part of the collection but also how to liberate whatever poor innocent was trapped here.

So deep in thought was he that at first it didn't register that he couldn't actually see what was in the room with him until the door was securely closed. Figuring that it wouldn't hurt to distance himself from it's tormenters, he did appear human from the outside after all, he began to talk.

"Hello, I'm the Doctor and I'm here to help you. I got your distress signal on my ship. I'm not like these people, I won't hurt you."

Two lights flashed in the darkness and the Doctor felt his hearts falter. A garbled, mechanical voice sliced through the sudden silence.

"THE DOCTOR?!?!"

"No no no! Let me out! Let me out!" The Doctor pressed himself against the door, genuinely terrified.

"YOU ARE AN ENEMY OF THE DALEKS!! YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!!!"


	5. Chapter 5

"YOU ARE AN ENEMY OF THE DALEKS!! YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!!!"

* * * * * *

One the other side of the door, Van Statten was practically drooling over the sudden responsiveness of his pet. So this man was the Doctor, and the Metaltron's real name was Dalek. And apparently they were long time enemies…

A commotion behind him caused Van Statten to whirl around in annoyance only to freeze. The girl, who he had written off as largely unimportant baring the strangeness with the musical instrument, was glowing with a golden light. She waved a hand, and as the various displays and screens shorted with the motion, the door to the Cage slid open. Almost instantly the glow faded away and she ran to embrace the Doctor, stroking down his spine and reassuring him in a disgusting show of emotion.

Ignoring them for the moment, Van Statten walked into the Cage.

"Is Dalek your name?"

Silence.

"Come on, you can talk to me. I'm willing to negotiate, I am a reasonable man after all."

Silence. And then from the Doctor sounding hoarse, "Van Statten you need to destroy that thing before it kills everything on this planet."

Whirling, Van Statten glared. "This is my one living specimen, and I will not allow it to be harmed."

The girl snarled such an animalistic way that Van Statten took a step back. "So you don't consider torture you do to it, harmful?"

Pouting a bit like a scolded child who thinks that no wrong has been done he replied, "I was just trying to get it to talk."

"By torturing it?!?!"

"When other measures failed to work."

The girl shook her head in disgust and gently led the Doctor away. Van Statten looked over his shoulder at the Dalek, and then to his head….motivator.

"Make it talk again."

The sadistic grin he got in reply was changed to a look of surprise. Turning to see, Van Statten watched in horror as that idiotic intern Adam laid his hand on the dome. By his expression, he felt sorry for the Dalek, but if the last time someone came into contact with it was anything to go by, his sympathy was about to be rewarded in a horrifically painful death.

What happened instead was worse than that to Van Statten's mind. Adam jerked his hand away as if the surface had been hot, revealing a bright hand print.

"VIABLE GENETIC SAMPLE OBTAINED. COMMENCING EMERGENCY INTEGRATION AND REPAIR!"

Before their eyes the Dalek's damaged exterior began to repair itself. Suddenly fearful, Van Statten rushed out of the room, followed by Adam. The other man stayed, feeling that he could easily take on this creature who had been at his mercy for so long. Seeing this the Doctor yelled from the other side of the room where he and the girl had been standing and talking quietly to themselves.

"Get out of there! It'll kill you!"

The man rolled his eyes and turned to the now completely restored Dalek. The last word he heard, just as the Dalek was adjusting its laser, was "EXTERMINATE!"

* * * * *

The Doctor winced as the dying scream of the torturer faded away. He had tried to warn the man. He didn't have time to dwell though, and so rushed over to the computer console and hastily entered a command. The heavy Cage door sealed them off from the approaching Dalek and bought a few precious moments. He grabbed Rose's hand and started to run for the elevators but was brought up short by a guard.

From behind him Van Statten said "Where do you think you're going? It'll never get the code."

"Oh yes it will," the Doctor replied a touch anxiously. "There's no lock on Earth that could stop it. Especially now that it knows I'm here. The last great enemy of the Daleks."

"And what exactly is a Dalek then? And what are you?"

"Look, I'll explain as we run away alright?"

After a moment, Van Statten reluctantly nodded and motioned for them to move away.

"A Dalek is a killing machine, it wants everything in the universe to be just like it. Anything that's different, any thing special, exterminate it. And me, I'm a Time Lord. The Last of the Time Lords. My people fought the Daleks and we lost. Everyone lost. But we managed to take them with us."

"And how did you survive then Doctor?"

A pained expression crossed his face and he started to speak, "I don't kn—"

The girl cut him off, her eyes glowing the strange gold that had been present earlier. "I saved you, my Doctor. I will always save you, when I can, Time's Champion."

Even as they were heading farther away from the Cage, the Doctor spared her an astonished expression. She merely smiled back, but that smile fell away as they heard the Cage door opening and the cry of "EXTERMINATE!" echo through the hall.

Van Statten was starting to get the sinking feeling that the Doctor had been right about the Dalek…

* * * * * *

The Doctor's mind was racing as they ran and finally ha stopped and turned urgently to Van Statten.

"You research alien artifacts yeah? Where are the weapons?"

"The Dalek is between us and them, they're a few floors down and the stairs and elevators are both back that way."

The Doctor ran a hand over his hair. "Ok, well…what about the things you haven't categorized yet, where's that at?"

Adam spoke up from the back of the group. "I can take you there."

Nodding decisively the Doctor took half a step before stopping and looking at Rose. Striding over to her, he grabbed her shoulders and looked deeply into her dark brown eyes.

"Rose, I want you to get back to the TARDIS. I'm going to go and trip to stop the Dalek, but if I can't, you have to get the TARDIS away from here. The Daleks can never have that technology. If I don't come back just say 'Emergency Program 6' and the TARDIS will take you to a place and time where you can make a life for yourself and be happy. Alright."

Rose blinked slowly at him before nodding. He wasn't particularly convinced that she would do as he had asked but there wasn't enough time to make sure. He strode over to Adam and after a gruff "Lead the way then," they both took off.

The Doctor's mind was racing along faster than his feet. How had the Dalek survived? How had one stinking Dalek made it when none of his people had? Reflexively his mind stretched out, searching hopelessly for another Time Lord. As he had slowly come to accept, there was nothing.

"Here it is," panted Adam. "This is where everything we've bought at auction but haven't figured out yet is." He led over to a large bin. "These are the ones we think are weapons."

Immediately the Doctor began to shift through the items. "Broken. Broken. Broken. Hair dryer. Broken. Broken."

He was starting to lose hope of finding anything of use when at the very bottom he found a very large gun from the 56th century. It would work.

Heaving the gun over one shoulder, he took off back the way they had come.

* * * * * * * * *

Once the Doctor had gone, Van Statten and his employees had all headed to his office. Rose had wandered off down a hallway. An echo of this event was happening around her, an echo filled with much more death. But an echo that also told her where she needed to be to free the Dalek and save the Doctor from himself.

Soon she stood where she was needed. They were only one floor below the surface now, and she didn't have to wait long. The Dalek glided forward until it was several yards away from her.

"WHY DO YOU NOT RUN?"

Rose blinked serenely. "Why would I run?"

"ARE YOU NOT AFRAID?"

"No, Dalek, I do not fear you. But I think that you fear youself."

"A DALEK HAD NO EMOTIONS! A DALEK DOES NOT KNOW FEAR!"

"Yes, but you aren't just a Dalek, are you? You used that boy's DNA to fix yourself and something in it has corrupted your purpose, hasn't it? So tell me Dalek, are you afraid?"

There was a long moment of silence.

"YES. I AM AFRAID. THIS IS SICKNESS! THIS IS NOT THE DALEK WAY! YOU MUST ORDER ME TO DIE!"

At that moment, the Doctor hurtled around the corner behind Rose. He stopped and aimed his gun. "Step away from there, Rose!"

She looked over her shoulder at him sadly before turning back to the Dalek.

"Dalek, if it is truly your wish, then I order you to die."

"DO YOU FEEL…..REGRET?"

"Yes."

"SO…DO I."

The Dalek began to float, the roundels that covered its surface detaching and forming a network around it. An electric charge passed through them, forming a force field, and the Dalek exploded. The fire was contained by the field and as it died away, seemed to suck the roundels inwards until only a faint trace of smoke in the air was left to give testament to what had been there.

A clatter came from behind Rose and she turned to see that the Doctor, looking pale and haunted, had dropped the gun. She hurried over to him and wrapped her arms around him as he began to sob.

"I'm the last one, Rose. There aren't any others left, it's just me!"

She rocked him gently and knew that they would have to deal with this more extensively once they got back to the TARDIS. Leaning back a bit, she wiped his tears away and gave him a small smile. He started to pull himself together, and then they heard running footsteps. Composing himself fully, both he and Rose turned to face the new arrivals on the scene.

"We were watching from my office. You just let my prize specimen, no, you ODERED my prize specimen to kill itself?!? What the hell were you thinking? Who do you think you are?!" Van Statten's face was turning a very unattractive shade of purple as he raged. By the time his little speech was done, the Doctor's eyes were hard and furious.

"That Dalek would have wiped every human from the face of this earth. That single Dalek would have killed millions and it would have been because of you. That why we stopped it. And as for who I am? I'm the Doctor, the Oncoming Storm, the Destroyer of Worlds, Ka Faraq Gatri, and I have just saved not only your miserable lives but everyone on Earth, and would it kill you to show even a hint of gratitude?"

Turning away in disgust, he slid his arms away from Rose until he was only holding her hand and started to walk away, back to the TARDIS. From behind him Van Statten yelled.

"What am I supposed to do now? My prize piece is gone!"

Turning a dark glare over his shoulder the Doctor kept walking as he called back, "If I were you, I wouldn't try for another live specimen, as you put it. The next time you might not get so lucky."

Van Statten stared at him with a clear expression of disbelief and the Doctor turned away from him again, brushing it off as not really his concern.

"What happens to him?" Rose whispered.

Concentrating a bit on the timelines, the Doctor looked ahead. "One of his aids will decide that what he does and wants to do to alien life is inhuman and that it should be stopped. She has his memory wiped and he's dropped off in some major city."

Rose nodded solemnly and cuddled herself against his arm.

* * * * * * *

It was a huge relief to be back in the TARDIS. Her soothing hum relaxed a lot of the tension that the Doctor hadn't even realized her was carrying. He had to talk to Rose about what happened though, as much as he wanted to just fling them into the Vortex and pretend that nothing had occurred.

"Rose, what was that back there? Why did you order the Dalek to die, and why did it listen?"


	6. Chapter 6

Rose sighed. "When the Dalek used Adam's DNA it was damaged enough that it used it to repair parts of its organic components."

The Doctor's eyes lit with understanding. "And it couldn't take feeling emotions, it wasn't really a Dalek anymore. It hated itself."

Rose nodded solemnly. The Doctor shuddered harshly and ran a hand over his hair and rested it on the back of his neck. "Well, that's that I guess."

Rose frowned. "No, Doctor, there's something else." When he looked askance at her, she continued. "This affected you more than anything else we've done. And for good reason too. But you aren't dealing with it, you aren't releasing your emotions at all. Not getting angry or sad, not even happy, just always trying to ignore it. It's not healthy."

As Rose spoke, tension had crept into the Doctor's back until he was standing rigidly, facing away from her.

"Please, Doctor, let me in. Let me know what you're feeling. I know I can't really sympathize, I haven't lost my entire world, but it can't hurt you to let some of it out."

When the Doctor turned to her, Rose felt a flash of hope, hope that he might finally ease some of the burden on himself. When his mouth crashed against hers with a bruising force, teeth clashing in his urgency, she was completely shocked.

Didn't stop her from kissing him back with equal force.

He pressed her back as they kissed until her legs collided with the jump seat. She pulled away long enough to settle herself on the chair properly and then pulled him in for another burning kiss. His large hands were at her hips, his thumbs stroking the delicate skin above her trousers in time with his kiss. She stroked her hand over his neck and ears, hitting a spot just behind one that caused him to groan and grind into her.

Feeling his hardness through their layers of clothes, Rose gasped and tilted her head back. The Doctor wasted no time in attacking her pale throat. His licks and nips fueled her ardor and she arched against him, winding her legs around his hips and pulling him more fully against her.

The Doctor groaned, the vibrations rumble through his throat and mouth, and finally yanked himself away long enough to strip of his jacket and shirt. Rose had taken advantage of the momentary reprieve to do the same and as the Doctor came back to her, he let himself focus lavish attention on her newly freed breasts.

Rose gave a breathy moan as the Doctor licked and nipped her left breast while tweaking the nipple of her right with his hand. Her hand clawed at his back and finally she had to haul him up by his ears back to her mouth. As they kissed her hands worked frantically at the fastenings of his dark jeans, finally managing to pop the button. She was a bit more careful with the zipper as she tugged it down, but quite quickly she had managed to slip her hand inside.

The Doctor pulled his mouth from hers and panted harshly as her warm hand wrapped around his cooler flesh. She nipped at his throat, the same spot she had hit earlier that made him respond so well, and he bucked into her hands. He was built nearly like a human male, but with a few ridges under the skin that seemed to pulse in time with the song of the TARDIS. Rose stroked him firmly twice before he pulled her hands away and pulled his trousers the rest of the way off along with his socks and shoes.

Rose caught her breath at the sight of him completely naked before her. His hands took advantage of her distraction and quickly peeled away her tight buckskin trousers, discarding them over his shoulder. His eyes darkened and he licked his lips as he pulled her lace-covered panties down and over her smooth legs. Tossing those aside as well he gave her a quick grin as the only warning of his intentions.

(AND now, due to my great fear of the gods of fanfic dot net attacking me, the lemon juice has been put into a different cup. That cup's name is : who fic dot com, minus the spaces in between there. My name is the same and the story title is too so if you like, you can go there for the smut)

* * * * * * * * *

What had he done? Not only had he taken advantage of Rose, who still wasn't all there in the head, but he had broken the only rule he ever set for himself. No getting involved with Companions. And definitely no getting involved with someone as innocent as Rose, someone so apart from the world that she didn't even see how far beneath her he was.

But he was definitely involved now. And Rose would probably expect things to change, for him to some how alter his treatment of her because of this new intimacy between them. But this regeneration was just too damaged for that, he could barely tolerate the amount of pleasure that had coursed through him as he had made love to Rose. And it had been making love, not just sex or fucking, and that was perhaps most terrifying of all.

A wailing alert from the console interrupted his thoughts. He yanked his jeans back on and strode over, a mauve alert in World War I era London. He set the coordinates and stalked off towards his room. He needed a shower and fresh clothes. There was no way he could deal with a crisis smelling of sex and Rose.


	7. Chapter 7

Rose had been both hurt and confused when the Doctor brushed her off and stalked deeper into the TARDIS. He hadn't even told her where they were headed.

Deciding that she would just have to deal with it after the situation they were entering was fully resolved, Rose gathered her clothes up from around the console room and headed for a shower of her own. As she washed her hair she thought about her still missing chunks of memories. She was sure she should care more, worry or be afraid that she was missing so much of her life before she had found this version of her Doctor, but for some reason it was very hard for her to care.

After her shower she padded naked into the wardrobe room and pulled on a plain bra and panties, Over that she added jeans and a T-shirt, not really noticing what was on it as she mulled over her complete lack of concern. The golden mists that made up the useable parts of her mind-scape had settled into calm pools of golden liquid which seemed to indicate that as much as she knew of herself before, which was admittedly not much at all, was all she would ever know.

Straightening her jacket with a final tug, Rose decided that if there was anything she really needed to know it would come back to her on it's own. Feeling better for her resolution, Rose headed back towards the console room, hoping that the problem would be fixed quickly so that she and the Doctor could talk about why he had slammed a wall up between them earlier.

* * * * * * * * *

Feeling much better after his extremely hot shower, the Doctor waited impatiently for Rose. Humans, as good as they were as companions, always took so long to get ready. Maybe he should go back to the tin dog….

When Rose glides into the room, the Doctor pauses for a second to wonder how she managed to glide while wearing a tacky Union Jack T-shirt and jeans before brushing the though off as irrelevant. He gives her a grin and swings the doors open, stepping out into an air raid.

Lovely.

People are running everywhere as the wail of the sirens shreds the nighttime calm like a tiger with its kill. Children, hauled by one hand faster than their short legs can carry them, cry and stumble after their terrified parents. And when he looks at Rose the wolf is in her eyes.

Turning away, he briefly scans the area, looking for anything out of place. Seeing several children run into a house that obviously isn't their own, he absent mindedly tells Rose not to wander off and then follows them.

* * * * * * * * * *

Don't wander off? It's the middle of an air raid if he hadn't noticed, and she is wearing a great big Union Jack all across her chest. Angrily she stalks over towards a relatively safe looking building and just as she is about to sit with a huff, a man barrels out the door and nearly runs her over.

"Excuse me!"

The man leers slightly as he looks her over. She had thought that they were a bit less sexual in this era…maybe the history books left it out?

"Captain Jack Harkness at your service. Sorry about that, is there any way I can…make it up to you?"

Ooh, an American.

"Well," Rose says, knowing that she shouldn't be flirting with this stranger as bombs fall all around them, but doing it anyways, "I'm sure we can think of something."

The blinding grin he gives in response almost is enough to distract her from the guilt she is already feeling.

* * * * * * * * * *

After a very interesting and also very revealing dinner with the children, the Doctor returned to where he left Rose. Who, as usual, had managed to wander off. With his luck she was probably dangling from a barrage balloon or some such thing.

Apes.

After using the sonic to track her down by means of her superphone, he almost wishes she was hanging in the sky with death all around. Better that than snogging this dashing hero in a greatcoat. Just what he needs, a pretty boy.

He clears his throat, to angry to feel awkward, and is intensely surprised when the man simply looks up and then pulls him into a kiss as well. He can feel Rose laughing as she is trapped between them, but he can't really see the humor in the situation.

Pulling himself away roughly, he glares and says "While the of you were snogging people are getting infected with some sort of virus. I don't know how it's being done though, none of the symptoms make any sense. But there might be more evidence at the hospital and that's where I'm headed next. If the two of you can untangle yourselves for half a minute, then you can come along."

Rose gave him an inscrutable look, while Jack looked somewhat hurt. Whatever their feelings, they followed him as he stalked off towards Albion Hospital.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The hospital looked less like a hospital and more like a grand old gothic mansion. As the three of them walked carefully through the admittedly eerie shadows, Jack took a moment to look his new companions over. Originally he has thought that the Time Agency would be the ones after him, but instead he got these two.

Not that he was complaining too strongly about that.

The girl acted awfully familiar with him, while the man was downright hostile. They were both so obviously anachronistic that Jack couldn't help but grin at times. Honestly, who wears a Union Jack shirt in the London Blitz?

Peering into a side room, his preoccupation nearly caused Jack to miss the rows and rows of occupied beds.

"Hey, you two! I really need to get your names…Anyway, looks like this is the place."

The other two crowded behind him, peering through the small window in the door. Rows upon rows of beds all with occupants wearing gasmasks. The man pushed past him, a touch more roughly than was necessary. The girl turned apologetic eyes towards him and spoke.

"I'm Rose and he's the Doctor. Don't mind him, he just takes a bit of time to warm up to people. I'm sure in no time we'll all be very good friends."

The Doctor's head shot up like a startled deer as Rose spoke. His expression quickly turned to one of irritation but what ever he had been about to say was cut off by a bomb falling almost directly outside. In response to the noise, the gas mask people all sat bolt up right and shivered in what looked like fear. After a moment, they settled back down again.

Rose, Jack and the Doctor exchanged heavy looks. What exactly was going on here?


	8. Chapter 8

As the three of them tried to figure out what was going on in the hospital room, a voice echoed strangely down the hall way.

"Muuuuuummmy. Where are you mummy?"

The Doctor stiffened. It was the same little boy from before, when he was in the house with all the other children. "Don't let him touch you." He whispered harshly.

Jack looked confused, "Why not? What happens if he touches us?"

Gesturing expansively around the room the Doctor replied, "You're looking at it. So Don't. Let. Him. Touch. You."

Glancing about at the lifeless forms, both Jack and Rose shivered slightly. No, they wouldn't let the little boy touch them.

* * * * * * * *

Rose looked around a touch frantically. All her instincts were screaming at her to get out of the room, to not let herself be boxed in. Other than the main doors there was only the window, and a seven story drop.

The two heavy main doors creaked open slowly.

"Mummy? Where are you mummy? Why won't you come here? I'm scared, Mummy..."

Jack was hunting frantically around in his coat. Rose took a moment to glare at him. Whatever it was in his coat she doubted it would get them out of this situation. She doubted him right up until the point where he pulled a fairly impressive blaster from somewhere within the folds of his coat.

With a wild grin that reminded Rose strongly of the Doctor in one of his manic episodes, Jack declared, "Going down!"

She gripped onto the Doctor's leather jacket with white knuckled determination as the floor disappeared from under them. After a very short recovery from the fall, JAck aimed his gun at the whole in what was now the ceiling and pressed the trigger again. As the the hole filled in his grinned and explained, "Digital rewind. Unfortunately these special features take a lot out of the battery and it's not going to be much good now."

"Batteries?" Rose was vaguely disgusted. All of time and space and he had a gun that worked on batteries?

Jack pouted and opened his mouth to retaliate but the Doctor cut him off. "Not now children." He turned a stern expression on Jack, "Now I recognize that make of gun and it marks you very definitely as a Time Agent, or at least an ex-Time Agent who is very good at running."

Jack grinned a touch ruefully, "Ex-Time Agent."

"And what is an ex-Time Agent doing in the middle of the London Blitz? There are certainly nicer times to sight see, and definitely safer ones to hide in."

Jack sighed and rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "I'm running a con alright? I had a harmless little piece of space junk and I sent out a signal to make it seem like a big deal. It's sitting on the lawn outside."

"What were you going to do when the Agency showed up?" The Doctor seemed awfully disappointed, Rose thought, for a man trying not to like someone.

"I was going to name a price and demand half up front in cash. Then in a few hours when a german bomb drops on it, problem solved. The perfect, self-cleaning con. But then you two showed up and were just so much more interesting..." He winked salaciously.

The Doctor pretended to be oblivious and nodded his head sharply. "Then that's where we should start then. Come on!"

Rose laid a sympathetic hand on Jack's shoulder as they followed after the Doctor. She knew exactly how frustrating it was to want the mad alien and be unable to have him.

* * * * * * *

When the Doctor saw the piece of space "junk" at first he thought that Jack had been one hundred percent correct in his assessment. And then a cloud of gold had swirled up around his hand, healing a tiny burn that he had gotten a few days ago while reworking some of the wiring in the TARDIS.

Glowering, he let a hint of the Oncoming Storm into his eyes. "Do you know what those were, Captain?"

The younger man swallowed harshly. "Nanogenes."

"Nanogenes. Exactly. And what do nanogenes do? They fix things. But these had never seen humans before so they tried their best when they found that little boy that a bomb had killed. And now whenever they find someone new, someone healthy, they don't know that they're not helping. They think that all the healthy people have something terribly wrong with them. Soon it'll go air borne and then, then all of London and England and eventually the world will be taken over by this plague that you started, Captain."

As he had spoken he'd inched closer and closer to Jack, and now he was jabbing an accusing finger directly in the other man's face. He'd worked up a fair head of steam and was thus rather shocked when Rose shoved him lightly away from the terrified Time Agent.

"Doctor, less pointing fingers and blaming. More fixing things, yeah?"

Shaking his head slightly he turned back to the ship containing the nanogenes. He pretended to ignore the Captain's sigh of relief and the way Rose lay a comforting hand on his arm. Seeing that move though, did spark an idea.

"Well Captain, you started this and I'm gonna help you end it."

Jack looked skeptical. "End it how?"

Holding up the sonic screwdriver, the Doctor gave a manic grin. "With this."

* * * * * * * *

Rose turned away, listening with only half an ear to the Doctor's plan. Since Jack was the only truly human one out of the three of them, the Doctor was going to use his DNA sequence as a new program for the nanogenes. He was planning on transmitting the code using the sonic screwdriver and the technology from the space craft, which Jack had apparently landed rather than crashed as he had initially planned.

But Rose kept feeling a sense of impending danger, as if a threat was lurking just out of sight.

It wasn't until a small hand grabbed tightly onto hers that she figured out where the threat came from. She stared into the blank eyes of the gas mask wearing child.

"Are you my mummy?"

* * * * * * *

Whipping around at the sound of the eerie child's voice, the Doctor saw Rose staring in total shock at the small boy clinging desperately to her hand.

"Rose!"

Her head snapped around and he saw the gold in her eyes was swirling violently. "Stay back, Doctor!"

Determinedly he turned and aimed his sonic screwdriver at the space craft. After a few moments a huge swarm of gold escaped and swept out in two directions. The larger part of the clod swept hurriedly towards the hospital. The much smaller cloud shot over to hang around Rose and the small boy.

The glow intensified to the point that the Doctor had to look away but when he looked back, Rose was holding the hand of an ordinary little boy, with sandy blonde hair and big blue eyes.

Solemnly the little boy said, "You aren't my mummy." and walked slowly away towards the hospital.

Rose hadn't move and the Doctor hurried towards her.

"Rose?"

She turned towards him stiffly. Her eyes were maelstroms of energy and tears were sliding down her face. "He was so sad, Doctor. All alone and can't find his mother. My mother's lost too.....lost to me on the other side of the screaming darkness...."

And with that fairly alarming statement, her eyes rolled back in her head and Rose collapsed. Jack, who was slightly less stunned, caught her and hefted her into a bridal carry.

"Let's get her back to your ship, Doctor. She obviously needs to rest."

Seeing the logic behind this, but not really liking the fact that Jack was not only holding Rose but would also be seeing the inside of the TARDIS, the Doctor led the way.

With his luck the time agent would probably say something stupid like "It's bigger on the inside." As if he hadn't noticed by now.

* * * * * * *

Upon arriving at the door of a blue police box the Doctor stopped. Jack shifted Rose in his arms and furrowed his brow in confusion. Why were they stopping here? When the Doctor pulled out a key, Jack decided to himself that it must be some sort of cloaking technology that wasn't yet around in his time.

As he stepped through the doors and into the enormous room within, he quickly revised that opinion. The Doctor turned and looked at him expectantly.

"This...is a TARDIS isn't it?"

A solemn nod.

"And then....you're a Time Lord?"

Another nod.

Jack carefully walked to the jump seat and lowered Rose down. Turning back to the Doctor he asked one final question. "I snogged a Time Lord?"

A rather irritated expression along with a third nod. An irritated expression which rapidly morphed into stunned disbelief as Jack fell on his arse laughing insanely.


End file.
